See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Here (the Dallas Mavericks forum) most are not worried about K-Mart on Nowitzki, especially since Nowitzki had few problems with him during this year's four regular season games.
But I would warn the Mavericks that if you can't keep Chris Andersen from camping out under the rim all night, you will have problems. Chris Andersen is like K-Mart on an illegal substance. And that reminds me, has anybody checked JR Smith's locker lately? There's no telling what might be in there. Laugh out loud.
FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
None of those "K-Mart becomes the other hero of Colorado along with Chauncey Billups" things is going to be happening very much with Dirk because he is not a rookie or a 2nd year man.
As the post just above stated, someone at Dirk's level would rather have a really good defender on him than a continual doubling. But he and his Coach (Rick Carlisle) can deal with either.
You know, you can have the best man to man defender on Planet Earth but you can not shut down a power scorer with just that. In football maybe but not in basketball.
And if you trap and double Mr. Nowitzki all night the Mavericks have plenty of other firepower to beat you with.
The Mavericks have a balanced offense and a power scorer, not just a balanced offense only! So do the Cavaliers and the Lakers! The Nuggets should try it sometime.
FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Posted by alby
Dirk Nowitzki vs Kenyon Martin
ENOUGH SAID
Dirk N >>> K-Mart until the four regular season games this year, when it looks more mixed.
I am honestly not worried, because:
(a) Although K-Mart and Chris Andersen might limit Mr N to, at worst, about .400 and 15-20 points in roughly half the games, I am totally sure that won't matter too much due to the rest of the offensive firepower on the Mavericks. Jason Kidd and Rick Carlisle know what to do in this situation. Dallas will lose some games of this type but they could win one or two as well.
(b) In games when Dirk is at or above .500, I know that George Karl will stay with K-Mart on Dirk one on one for way to long. So if Dirk N is on and K-Mart can't keep up, it's almost an automatic Dallas win. When Mr N is totally out of control in a game, or in the series as a whole for that matter, Mr. Karl will not make any adjustments, or maybe its more accurate to say that there are no adjustments that will work in that case, so he and his Nuggets will repeatedly be torched.
I never knew you could do that at basketball-reference until now, nice to know that.
Does God get more of a say than usual in today's game since it's a Sunday? If so, I hope he watches over the Mavericks and helps them reach the promised land as they go in to the house of the devil.
I can't expect the Mavericks to win today, due to the high intensity with which Denver is trying to prove they can get into the Championship with their "defense drives everything including our offense" strategy. The way I see it the Nuggets have gone off the deep end with their defensive obsession and their over reliance on fast break and in transition scores.
If Denver does lose today their confidence will take a huge hit, and they probably will not be able to fully recover.
God, please smite them, if not today then on Tuesday.
Regardless of who wins today, I am confident that Dallas will win this series. Denver's strategies are not reliable enough to ensure they can simply win all 4 home games and take the series that way.
What redemption for the Mavericks it will be when they win this series. They lost the 1-8 to Golden State a couple years ago and now they can make up for that by winning a 6-2 that almost everyone expects them to lose.
FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Posted by Five-ofan
The mavs are the older less athletic team in this series after being the younger more athletic team in the last one.
True to a limited extent; but Chauncey Billups and KMart are not spring chickens.
I think that Carlisle has to know not to use JJ Barea in this series. They have the bigs to stop his penetration and there is no one on their roster he can guard. I dont want him getting more than 10-12 minutes a game in this series.
This is very true; the Nuggets think you can stop penetration, that the refs won't call all the fouls, and that the players they are roughing up will miss more free throws than they usually do.
I think the mavs should run a good deal of 4/5 pick and roll with Dirk and either Bass, Singleton or Hollins with Jet and Josh in the corners and Kidd on the wing. I really dont think the Nuggets can stop that play, especially when bass is the other big.
Yes, this is exactly what the Nuggets can be beaten with.
More generally, they can be beaten with the experience and passing of Kidd.
I dont think its that important to try to keep a great defender on Smith. I think hes one of those guys whose either on or not. I dont think wrights good enough to stop him if hes on and if hes not then its not worth wasting a good defender on him. Id prefer to try to let jet match him shot for shot.
I could not agree more. But I would add that if ever JR Smith is hitting almost every single three, you would be forced to put Wright on him no later than halfway through the 3rd quarter.
I think the pg matchup is very interesting. Billups is going from the best possible pg matchup for him to the worst(he could use his size against Paul) Kidd is going from the worst possible matchup to the best. I think this ends up being very close.
[I agreed with a smilie.]
I think the series ends up being decided by who does a better job defensively out of Dirk and Melo. I think everything else matches up fairly evenly so as long as dirk does a better job on Kmart (Kenyon Martin)than Melo (Carmelo Anthony) does on Howard we should win. I expect that to happen.
I'll take Howard in a playoff game over Melo any day of the week. Melo hasn't done much of anything in the playoffs up to and including this very moment.
Don't tell me about how wonderful Melo was in the Hornets series. That series was a waste of time given how the Hornets were the walking wounded. The Hornets would have had at least as good of a chance to compete in the games in that series had they benched all the starters and started the bench!
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
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